The Vatican's official newspaper is for the first time in its 150-year history publishing an all-colour women's supplement "to give voice to the value that women bring to the church".

Women, Church, World will be edited by women and published with L'Osservatore Romano, the newspaper founded in 1861 and published by the Holy See on the last Thursday of every month.

The new section will promote a keener understanding of the "under-appreciated treasure" of women in the church, according to editor Giovanni Maria Vian.

The launch coincides with the worst scandal to hit the Vatican in years as leaked letters addressed to the pope expose a world of jealous, spiteful prelates and petty rivalries.

Vian said Pope Benedict backed the supplement, which he said would hire non-Catholic contributors.

Lucetta Scaraffia, a writer at the paper who created the supplement, said: "It provides information on the female condition, without ignoring hot topics like procreation, access to culture and women's rights."

The pullout will compete with L'Osservatore Romano's stories explaining the Vatican's approach to women, from its views on abortion to condemnation of female ordination.

In 2010 the Vatican upgraded the crime of ordaining women to the priesthood, rendering it one of the most serious crimes against church law alongside paedophilia.

Under Benedict's papacy, the views of the Holy See on abortion have not changed. In 2007 a senior cardinal demanded that Catholics stop donating to Amnesty International after it advocated abortion rights for African women gang-raped by soldiers.

But in an editorial launching the supplement, Vian argued that "historical research is proving how much the emancipation and promotion of women owes to Christianity, right from its origins".

The newspaper, which employed its first female journalist in 2008, said the pullout "will also help amend prejudices and preconceived notions about the Catholic church and its attitude toward women".

Articles in the first edition of the supplement featured St Joan of Arc, the fight by religious women against human trafficking, and recent research showing that a well-known 18th-century book about spirituality, which was previously believed to be authored by a Jesuit priest, was written by a nun.

The launch comes as the American nuns condemned by the Vatican for failing to uphold Catholic doctrine hit back against the "unsubstantiated allegations" last week.

The Holy See complained in April that the nuns were spending too much time fighting poverty and too little time condemning abortion and gay marriage and announced it was sending a trio of bishops to take control.

On Friday the leading organisation of US nuns appeared to reject the ruling, calling it "the result of a flawed process that lacked transparency".

The first issue of Women, Church, World featured a cartoon in which a nun peeling potatoes thinks how lucky she is to have no husband to look after. But when she is handed another job by a priest, she states: "There are worse things than husbands."